Homicide Trial Goes To Jury In Carbon County

A Carbon County jury is expected to decide the fate of Bonnie Leskin today after testimony ended yesterday in the trial of the 37-year-old woman who claims she killed her husband in self defense.

County Judge John P. Lavelle recessed yesterday's court session at about 3:30 p.m. He told the jury that because of the late hour, he would charge them at 9:15 a.m. today.

Mrs. Leskin, who is charged with the Nov. 12, 1985, shooting death of her husband, Albert Jr., heard her two young daughters testify yesterday that their father at times would hit their mother and them for no apparent reason. The children also testified that they were afraid for the welfare of their mother and grandfather on the day of the shooting.

"He never liked me because I was like my mother," said 13-year-old Lori Leskin. Her sister, Julia, 8, said, "I was really scared because I thought my mommy was going to get killed."

Mrs. Leskin, who is charged with first-degree murder, third-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter, was the first person on the witness stand yesterday as Carbon County District Attorney RichardWebb began cross- examination for the commonwealth. Her direct testimony had begun on Tuesday. Webb questioned Mrs. Leskin on how her husband could have missed her with a bullet from about 4 feet away in a incident that occurred sometime in the 1970s. Mrs. Leskin had previously testified that her husband was a good marksman. Mrs. Leskin said she ducked when her husband fired the gun and grabbed one of her daughters who was in a playpen.

In response to another Webb question, she said she felt it was useless to press charges against her husband because he told her that he would get out on bail and "see what I do to you."

Webb asked the defendant why she stayed in the house all day when she was afraid her husband was going to kill her. Mrs. Leskin testified that she didn't go to the nearby home of her parents, Franklin and Naomi Costenbader, to call the police because of past experiences. She had earlier testified that police told her they would not answer domestic trouble calls.

Mrs. Leskin also said that she did not go for a gun while her husband was away from the house during the day because she hoped that he would calm down.

Webb questioned her on why she went to the basement of the home, when told to do so by her husband, if she was afraid that he was going to kill her. She testified that she always listened to her husband and did what he told her to do.

Dr. Robert Gordon, a clinical psychologist from Allentown, testified that he had tested Mrs. Leskin, had talked to her children, and had examined records of Leskin that were kept while he was a patient at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Wilkes-Barre after he shot himself in 1973.

He said Mrs. Leskin was suffering from the battered spouse syndrome. He added that she was not the type of person who would get angry and promote a fight.

Gordon testified that hospital records dated Oct. 31, 1973, showed that Leskin had poor judgment, had no insight, and showed indifference about the future. He said records showed that Leskin lost his temper while in the hospital, almost struck a head nurse, and pushed an attendant into a wall.

"He was like a time bomb in the VA hospital, and they knew that when they released him," said Gordon. He added that Leskin was released from the hospital when his benefits expired.

Under cross-examination by Webb, Gordon admitted that he did not contact any of the doctors who treated Leskin while he was in the hospital.

Gordon told Webb that he could say, with a high degree of certainty, that had he lived, Leskin would never recover from his "anti-social personality." He added, however, that a chance did exist for him to recover.

Franklin Costenbader testified that his son-in-law drank a lot. "If he was drunk, he was mean, and you couldn't reason with him," he said.

He also testified that he had gone hunting with Leskin over the years and said he was a good marksman.

Webb called Roberta Leskin, the mother of the shooting victim, as his only rebuttal witness. She testified that she never saw her son hit his wife. She also said Bonnie Leskin never spoke to her about being beaten by her son, saying they just argued.

Under cross-examination by Wallace Worth, another defense attorney, Roberta Leskin described her daughter-in-law as a good house keeper, and said she never saw her look as if she had been beaten.

In his closing comments, Worth told the jurors that they had heard a great human drama that had turned into a tragic family life. He told the jury that it was not against the law to kill, if a person felt they needed to do it to protect herself from serious bodily injury. He said the Commonwealth failed to prove that Mrs. Leskin did not shoot her husband in self defense.

In his closing comments, Webb asked what reasonable fear Mrs. Leskin had if she did not run down to her parents when she said feared for her life. He said only two documented injuries to Mrs. Leskin were presented by the defense. He also said the defense showed no evidence that Leskin had a weapon in his hand or was threating his wife in any way when he was shot.

He questioned what Mrs. Leskin was thinking while she was alone in the home before she went to the basement to face her husband. He said she may have been thinking what her husband would tell her father about missing money and what it was being used for.

Webb said Mrs. Leskin testified that she would do everything her husband asked, adding, however, that she refused to go the bank on the morning of the shooting to take a loan for a truck as her husband had asked.

Webb said the real victims of the case were Mrs. Leskin's two daughters.